MSoundfactory design thread

[Kalamata Kid]

I agree for this sound, but in general, do you think that MSF can do "warm" sounds ? Are its filters able to yield such capability ? (Still referring to Diva and Repro-5) or shall it be considered, in tone, as a purely digital synth and used as such ?

Sure it can do warm sounds, our definition of warm may differ though, for me cutting high frequencies, enhancing lower mids, adding saturation to create some even harmonics and adding subtle detuning and pitch drifting results in warm sounds. But why compete with Diva anyway...

I also love sound that is warm, thick, fat and saturated with milk chocolate.
Perhaps follow your advice on how to achieve that.
When the Sampler module is released I suppose best to start with a warm, thick, fat and saturated sample.

[dmbaer]

Dozens of wavetables extracted from acoustic instrument samples will contribute to building a musically useful sound library for a large variety of genres.

Question on this, Simon. MSF Wavetables are one-dimensional. That is, you could have a number of single-cycle waves from an acoustic instrument recorded at a given pitch (modulated by whatever), or you could have multiple single-cycle waveforms from various pitches modulated (in most cases) by note-number. Which approach are you talking about? I know you can get good mileage out of the latter because I've been using it with gratifying results. I'm just curious about how you are utilizing the wavetables with acoustic sources.

Also, will 100% of the presets in your upcoming release be editable (more to the point, will we be able to get in to examine the techniques you've applied)?

[mevla]

Sure it can do warm sounds, our definition of warm may differ though, for me cutting high frequencies, enhancing lower mids, adding saturation to create some even harmonics and adding subtle detuning and pitch drifting results in warm sounds. But why compete with Diva anyway...

Well, it's certainly not a competition. Each synth has its own range of expressions, its own character. My mention of Diva and Repro-5 stems from the subject itself, 'warmth', and how subjective it can be. So as to perhaps limit the subjective aspect and move forward with the purpose of the question, Diva and Repro-5 were mentioned as examples of synths that can have warm sounds.

[Sampleconstruct]

Sure it can do warm sounds, our definition of warm may differ though, for me cutting high frequencies, enhancing lower mids, adding saturation to create some even harmonics and adding subtle detuning and pitch drifting results in warm sounds. But why compete with Diva anyway...

Well, it's certainly not a competition. Each synth has its own range of expressions, its own character. My mention of Diva and Repro-5 stems from the subject itself, 'warmth', and how subjective it can be. So as to perhaps limit the subjective aspect and move forward with the purpose of the question, Diva and Repro-5 were mentioned as examples of synths that can have warm sounds.

Yes, and neither Diva nor Repro-5 is of any interest to me because “warmth“ as such is nothing especially thrilling, it's just warm...

[Sampleconstruct]

Dozens of wavetables extracted from acoustic instrument samples will contribute to building a musically useful sound library for a large variety of genres.

Question on this, Simon. MSF Wavetables are one-dimensional. That is, you could have a number of single-cycle waves from an acoustic instrument recorded at a given pitch (modulated by whatever), or you could have multiple single-cycle waveforms from various pitches modulated (in most cases) by note-number. Which approach are you talking about? I know you can get good mileage out of the latter because I've been using it with gratifying results. I'm just curious about how you are utilizing the wavetables with acoustic sources.

Also, will 100% of the presets in your upcoming release be editable (more to the point, will we be able to get in to examine the techniques you've applied)?

Using SCs is a good alternative but then you lack the time-factor of a musical phrase or a spoken word. Re-synthesizing a 30 second long cell swell in Icarus with all the dynamic depth, timbre evolution and pitch fluctuation yields very organic and expressive results. Unfortunately when porting those WTs to MSF they sound like garbage and all the sonic bliss gets lost. So the challenge will be to find the most effective way to re-synthesize things in MSF, I've already made some good experiences with preparing the samples before the re-synthesis process like removing too much pitch fluctuation, removing unwanted noise like bowing string noises and other artifacts. But MSF needs more tools to edit the resulting tables, I hope Vojtech will spend some more developing time on this oscillator...

And all the patches of my first MSF set will be editable, I won't lock anything, I never did.

[mevla]

Yes, and neither Diva nor Repro-5 is of any interest to me because “warmth“ as such is nothing especially thrilling, it's just warm...

And when added to a thrilling sound it then makes that sound thrillingly warm.

It seems that MSF would not venture into that territory, isn't it.

Which is fine. Not every single synth pout there has to be warm-sounding. Although the question was about that aspect of sounds.

[Sampleconstruct]

Yes, and neither Diva nor Repro-5 is of any interest to me because “warmth“ as such is nothing especially thrilling, it's just warm...

And when added to a thrilling sound it then makes that sound thrillingly warm.

It seems that MSF would not venture into that territory, isn't it.

Which is fine. Not every single synth pout there has to be warm-sounding. Although the question was about that aspect of sounds.

But now this is going in circles, I stated that I do believe that MSF is capable of producing warm sounds, different from Diva or whatever else but warm enough in my book. And you can always layer a heating blanket with your sounds

[jmg8]

You can make MSF sound warm. Here are some ideas.
Use some waveforms from analog synths (you can analyse or import.
Create some per-voice pitch randomness (be subtle here)
Use turbo filter with the analog parameter.
Use per voice distortions subtlety (like amp, wave fold, saturation)
For FX, try
Plate reverb
Turbo EQ and Turbo Comp
Tape delay

[mevla]

All right. Thanks, I will try it out.

I asked because, for me, its cousin MPS has a 'teflon coating' so to speak due to the lack of any warmness in all of the factory sounds. It can be largely due to a question of instrument categorization. I mean Go2 for instance is a good synth, but it's a cold digital synth so there's no mistake when looking for cold digital sounds. Won't go to Go2 in search of warm sounds: pointless. With MPS it's basically the same, except that it's a 'power synth'. Now with MSF, it's still undecided - too new, too few original factory sounds, many of them just being 'lab' demo experiments - so I thought of seeking the advice of an experienced sound set creator.

Cheers.

[Kalamata Kid]

The MSF warm issue was hotly debated here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=524931&start=1065

[allende]

Synthesis > synthesizer. MSF gives you pretty much all the tools imaginable to build any other synthesizer. If another synth sounds more warm to you, it's because it's coded into it's behavior. Using just the basic untweaked oscillator and a filter, shouldn't sound warm in MSF. If it would, it would mean it's not pure and clean anymore, but that something was already done to it (like in those warm synths people mention). Those synths will always sound (just) warm, but MSF can sound everything and anything.

What makes analog synths sound warm is not just distortion/saturation, but it's randomness and detuning. Old 80's synths had a lot of oscillator/phase drift that made it sound alive and big. So use more than one oscillator, add subtle movement to phase, pitch and other parameters you can think of. Random values/lfos work the best, but will use more cpu. After that subtle distortion/saturation, per-voice fx and/or filters, or even in the post generator effects tab. Also the more digital effects you use (digital delay, reverb etc) the less analog it will sound.

[Sampleconstruct]

Three fresh MSF patches, not even a limiter on the master outs, this synth so rocks!

https://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/ ... ry-for-msf

[MeldaProduction]

[Kalamata Kid]

Simon,

[nichttuntun]

The MSF warm issue was hotly debated here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=524931&start=1065

This so-called "issue" simply doesn't exist.

Simon: great patch and sound arrangement.